I would like to preface this review with a couple of environmental issues that could have tainted my opinion. I skipped lunch to not win a G5, so I was extremely hungry, and the sleep depravation had already started to set in. Did anyone else think the room was very cold? Maybe this was the reason that Mr. Wilde’s presentation wasn’t my favorite. It was also not the worst. I have a huge amount of respect for Richard and I guess I was expecting it to be my favorite session.

Richard didn’t disappoint me, I just didn’t feel like there wasn’t enough of him in the session. There was so much of this student’s work shown that I felt there could have been some more content. The student work was amazing, that is for sure. I hope my lack of enthusiasm for the student work is not because I am jealous of the quality and shear genius of some of the work. It is very obvious that he gets a lot out of his students.

Richard made the point, which I have heard many times before, that society and life in general takes the creativity out of us. We were born with observation and learning skills, but we tend to lose them as we get older. He gave some examples of ways to look at things from new perspectives. He also gave us a couple of quizzes, which I didn’t do so well on. He suggests doing concentrated doodles to try to find your way of working and your visual voice. He also encourages people to move from the known to the unknown. I have found this to be true throughout college and beyond. I seem to create some of my best work when I am experimenting with something new and unknown. This is one of the reasons that he suggested working with digital video.

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This session started with Matt shooting Nerf balls into the audience. The balls represent things you read, wear, listen to and watch. Each ball had something different written on it. Certain balls represented creatives and the others represented the marketing people. The creative ones had phrases like raise canaries, iPod, Toy Robot, PMS 187 and collect Peeps. The marketing people had phrases on their balls like reads best sellers, Disney World, Sports Illustrated, Banana Republic, Coach Potato, People Magazine etc. His point is that we as designers have a capacity to edit. We have a need to take in so much more visually. He also stated that today anyone can be a designer. All that you need is a Mac and some software. What makes us different is what happens in between the eye and the brain. In essence, we are a ’Äúlibrary’Äù.

Matt works for Hasbro and works in the division that markets to teen and preteen girls. A lot of what Matt does is trend hunting. He travels the globe in search of the next big thing. Write now we are seeing many influences from Japan. They are always ahead of us. I thought it was interesting how he described some of the reasons that the Japanese are such trendsetters. First of all they come from a very creative and cultural history. In the past each community had it’s own cultural identity. It had it’s own symbols and visual uniqueness.

I found it interesting how the Japanese culture really encourages their youth to work at being original from the ages of 17-20. Whether it is pink hair or clothes made out of plastic, the Japanese really embrace this experimentation in their youth. When they reach twenty then they are supposed to enter into the work force. Their girls also feel less pressure to grow up so fast. It is very common for a twenty-year-old Japanese girl to carry around a stuffed animal. I think this explains why everything is so over the top cute in their culture. He then proceeded to show some of the biggest Japanese influences on our culture right now.

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Please share your thoughts and reviews about the sessions that we couldn’t cover. These sessions include Wilde Thinking, Paying Your Dues Without Selling Your Soul, Secrets of Perfect Printing Revealed, and Designing Your Reality.

Please share your thoughts and reviews about the sessions that we couldn’t cover. These sessions include Dollar Dialogues, Learning to Look Up, Managing Color from Input to Output, and Marketing Your In-House Design Team.

Please share your thoughts and reviews about the sessions that we couldn’t cover. These sessions include Packaging Design, Managing Creatives, Mind Candy, Using Type to Your Best Creative Advantage, and Verbal Brainstorming.